South West Division SCCA Formula B 1970

With few FB cars in the Division at the start of the year, SWDiv took a little while to get going in 1970 but ended with four of the latest Brabham BT29s fighting for the title. Out-of-division raider Evan Noyes took the first race at Green Valley in February with Harvey Simon providing the only real local competition in his 1969 Caldwell. Then Jerry Haynes won the poorly supported round at Camp Gary AFB in early May in the Winkelman that he would later comprehensively wreck at Texas World Speedway in July.

The first of the BT29s to arrive was for Larry Harley who won at Chennault Field (Lake Charles Airfield) in May and he was then joined by Roy Maze and Bill Roland who finished first and second at Texas World Speedway in July and by Butch Harris who beat a strong field to win at Dallas International Motor Speedway in August. Harris took a second win ahead of Maze at Camp Gary AFB but Maze's three wins and a second, including winning the final race at Texas World Speedway in September, gave him the title. Despite augmenting his total out of Division, Harley fell two points short of Maze's total, with Harris's two wins proving enough for third. Bill Roland's two second places, both at Texas World Speedway, were not quite enough to get him to the Runoffs.

Like MidWest Div, none of this Division's drivers participated in the Pro series except for the local round at Dallas International Motor Speedway.

Final standings

† Indicates total includes points earned out of home division.

1970 Schedule

Texas Region continued to hold two Nationals but moved from Green Valley Raceway to the magnificent new Dallas International Motor Speedway, a combined drag strip and road course. San Jacinto Region also moved from Scholes Field to the equally new and impressive Texas World Speedway, a two-mile oval and road course at College Station, Texas. Lone Star also had a race at TWS as they had lost their usual gig at Austin Aqua Festival to a rival (non-SCCA) bid. Alamo and Southwest Louisiana Regions continued with their airfield circuit at Camp Gary AFB and Chennault Field respectively but San Jacinto's race at Conroe was not repeated, leaving just seven Nationals.

Southwest Division sources

Coverage of SWDiv was much slimmer in Competition Press & Autoweek than for other Divisions. To make the historian's life even more difficult, a couple of the Regions that organised National events do not appear to have had their own newsletters for much of this period: Alamo Region in Texas and Central Louisiana Region in Louisiana. The known Regional publications are:

• Deltagram (Delta Region)
• Journal (San Jacinto Region)
• Lone Star Draft (Lone Star Region) - from 1979
• Roundup (Texas Region)
• Spinout (Southwest Louisiana Region) - from 1978
• Border Bulletin (South Texas Border Region)

For much of the 1960s, the most important publication for this area was Southwest Racing News, published from 1963 onwards by Bill Gay from Dallas and running on until at least 1974. We are exceedingly keen to acquire copies of any of these.

We are also keen to get scans of entry lists from all SCCA Nationals and Regionals in this Division.